Economics 101
Economics 101 Class Is Now In Session
The National Debt Clock near Times Square, New York
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
In the midst of the financial tailspin we now find ourselves in, the National Debt Clock in New York City ran out of digits midweek to record the growing figure. As a temporary fix, the dollar sign was switched to a figure — the ‘1′ in the now over $10 trillion dollar national debt. The Durst Organization, which takes care of the sign, says it plans to update it next year by adding two digits.
That means the updated National Debt Clock will be capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars!
If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. I don’t even know what a trillion dollars is, let alone a quadrillion! The late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989. At that time his intent was to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt. Apparently those in positions of government leadership don’t care about the debt, nor did the sign catch their attention. If the sign caught their attention, we should now be debt free!
With this in mind, while I’ve said it before, I will say it again, I am NOT an economist, but I can certainly figure this out.
So listen up governmental leaders…
The Economics 101 Class Is Now In Session!
Let’s see if I can break this down into simple language for you Mr. Governmental Leader. This is not rocket science and let’s break through all the political gobbledygook your spin doctors like to put out there.
If you keep overspending, at some point, your budget will meltdown.
Is that simple enough?
It’s easy to point fingers at the financial CEO’s on Wall Street. It’s easy to point fingers and the political pundits on screaming talk radio. (By the way, the screamers are found on both the raging right and looney left.) It’s easy to point the finger at the Wall Street system. It’s easy to point the finger at you, the political leader.
But the bottom line is this, pointing fingers, and throwing money at a bad situation, only makes the bad situation worse.
Every government leader, and every citizen of the United States of America, should be embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that what started as a $2.7 trillion dollar debt in 1989 has grown to over $10 trillion. This is inexcusable and irresponsible. If I ran my household like this, the government would have put me out in the street a long time ago.
With that in mind, here’s another Economic 101 bullet point…
Mr. Governmental Leader, if you can’t balance the books, get out of office!
If a bookkeeper or CFO drove a company as far into debt as you have, they would be fired on the spot. With that in mind, it’s time to fire some governmental leaders.
As for the current leaders trying to garner our votes these days, here are a few economic points to keep in mind.
- An international plan for the money bailout will not work. Why would you even think it’s a good idea to have countries that hate us, tell us what we can do with our money.
- Stop firing up the money-making-printing-press. Piling up debt to escape debt does not work. Any good economist or financial planner will tell you the first thing we always want to do is to become debt free! Cut up the credit cards, and pay them off.
- Get debt free, that frees up money.
The previous bailout plans, throwing billions of dollars at Wall Street, AIG, and now the thought of buying bad bank loans, is not working. Mr. Governmental Leader, every time you do this, the markets drop even lower. Financial people know making more debt to get out of debt does not work.
Stop throwing money you don’t have at debt that’s already too high.
Finally, Mr. Federal Governmental Leader, realize others are watching you, and you are setting a very poor example. If you don’t care about the debt and living within a budget, why should anyone else care about that.
- The nation is in debt
- States are in debt
- Counties are in debt
- Villages, towns and cities are in debt
- Individuals are in debt
New York State leaders are planning to block Governor David Paterson’s proposal to cut an additional $2 billion dollars from the New York State budget. The so-called leaders say they want to wait and see what the projected income will be next month, before cutting the money. Wait a minute, New York State is all ready in debt, and the projections for next year puts another $8 billion dollars in the debt ledger. With that in mind, it’s not rocket science here.
New York State does not have $2 billion dollars to wait on. The State is already in debt!
But lets break this down even further. The governmental leaders in Canandaigua, New York are trying to figure out how they overspent their $80 thousand dollar budget line for attorney fees. To date, they’ve doubled that spending and the leaders in Canandaigua are predicting they will spend an additional $50 thousand dollars before the budget year closes.
How did they get here you ask?
They hired THREE attorneys this year instead of just one!
It’s simple economics here folks. The cost of THREE attorney’s will be more than the cost of just ONE. It’s simple economics and math here folks.
What should be done?
- We need to understand there’s no quick fix. Some say it might take up to 15 years to recovery from the full impact of the current financial crisis.
- Our aim should be to become debt free, not add more debt to the current debt.
- As voters, look long and hard at who you vote for this year. Stop the power of incumbent. The incumbent has helped to put us where we are now. Start cleaning house, and maybe we’ll find true leadership.
Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus
